Illinois Public Media News

Saturday Night Live ignores so many perennial complaints — that it's stale, that it has a spotty history with women, that sketches are too long — that it was kind of surprising to hear in mid-December that it was holding not-very-secret "secret auditions" to find a black woman to join the cast. Cast members Kenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah had both been talking about it in different ways, but to have longtime SNL boss Lorne Michaels suddenly go for a midseason hire?

A state report shows the amount of money taxpayers owe five state pension plans hit $100.5 billion on June 30. But that's $3 billion less when not using a counting method adopted five years ago that made the pension picture brighter.